Asmussen Passes Lake in Training Wins

With four wins Thursday trainer Steve Asmussen surged ahead of Scott Lake in the national standings for trainers' wins in 2002.

Asmussen won a pair of races at Fair Grounds and Sam Houston Thursday to run his win total to 389, one more than Lake, with 11 racing days left in the year.

"We've been fortunate this year no matter how this ends up," Asmussen said of the standings. "Going into this year our plan was to go after bigger pots and win bigger races and we've done that."

Asmussen, with $9,901,299, could eclipse the $10 million mark by year's end in total purses. Going into Friday's action, Asmussen ranks third behind Bobby Frankel ($17,481,428) and Bob Baffert ($9,901,299).

From 1,741 starts through Thursday, Asmussen compiled a 389-310-271 record. He has been in the money 56 percent of the time. Lake is 388-297-243 from 1,733 starters for total earnings of $8,139,244. Both are winning at a 22 percent clip on the year.

Asmussen has a pair of fillies in the Delta Princess Friday at Delta and a pair of colts in the Delta Jackpot Saturday. Asmussen will saddle seven horses in five races the next two days at Sam Houston.

At Fair Grounds, where Asmussen leads the trainer standings with 15 wins, he has five entrants in four races Friday, four entries on Saturday and three on Sunday.